It’s still going to look and feel different than years past, but, afterall, the LGBTQ+ community here (and everywhere) has never shied away from making showstopping lemonade out of lemons.
This weekend, however, Dallas Pride returns with a bang, featuring a full roster of in-person events around the city from Fair Park to the Oak Lawn gayborhood.
Like most cities worldwide, Dallas canceled IRL Pride in favor of two days of virtual gatherings and while it was a nice gesture, things just weren’t the same.
(The law wouldn’t officially come off the books until 2003 when the Supreme Court struck them down in every state.) Then in 2019, Pride festivities and the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade moved away from the Oak Lawn entertainment district to Fair Park-a decision that split the community despite its popular return to June in honor of Stonewall's 50th anniversary. Three years later, as the parade grew in size and visibility, the traditional June celebration month was ditched in favor of a (hopefully breezier) September fest commemorating the late-summer judicial ruling, albeit brief, that overturned Texas’ sodomy law. After the LGBTQ+ community’s first small-but-significant march shocked many a closed-minded local in 1972-a mere three years after the Stonewall riots in New York City-the city saw very few Pride-related festivities until the next parade in 1980. Watch the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sunday, June 2 nd from 2 pm-4 pm on CW33 or catch the encore presentation on Sunday, June 2 nd from 10pm-12 am.Dallas Pride has had more dramatic twists in its nearly 50-year history than all of Bridegerton, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Ryan Murphy’s fever dreams combined. History is still being made, as this year’s parade will be the first in Dallas to be broadcast live on TV, right here on CW33. In 2019, the parade and festival in Dallas were moved back to June. In 1991, the parade was named after Ross to honor the fact he had shouldered much of the responsibility for organizing the parade in the early years. It wasn’t until a 2003 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that such laws were ultimately deemed unconstitutional.Īlan Ross was one of the executive directors of the Dallas Tavern Guild, organizers of the parade in Dallas, and was a member of the board of directors of some of the leading gay and lesbian nonprofit groups during the 1980’s and 1990’s. In celebration the parade was renamed the Texas Freedom Parade and moved to September, the month of the ruling.īuchmeyer’s decision was ultimately overturned by a higher court. Buchmeyer ruled the Texas sodomy law unconstitutional, which essentially made it a crime to be gay. June marks LGBTQ pride month, and many cities will be hosting their annual variations of pride parades and celebrations.įor the past 36 years Dallas has also hosted a parade and celebration, albeit it’s own unique version.įor one, the parade itself is called the Alan Ross Freedom Parade and, until this year, was usually held in September (it’s in June this year).įor starters, organizers in Dallas historically held the parade in September (although it did start out in June) to commemorate a significant moment in the fight for LGBTQ equality in Texas. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.